Photo Credit: intenteffect
By Erica Ritz.
With the new “Obamacare” health insurance exchanges officially open for business, Glenn Beck and his radio co-hosts Pat Gray and Stu Burguiere went to www.healthcare.gov on Tuesday only to find what countless others were greeted with: glitches, errors, and messages asking you to hold.
Before long, they also spoke with a caller whose life is being turned upside down by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
“We appreciate your patience,” Gray said in the voice of a telephone operator. “You are Number 477,326 in line. Please continue to wait, as you will be taken in the order in which you arrived. Thank you for your patience.”…
After the break, Beck took a call from Bryan in Florida, who says his costs have already skyrocketed in the wake of the Affordable Care Act.
“Our insurance for the family plan…our current cost is $127 a week through United Healthcare which, you know, we have a really good plan,” Bryan began. “Well, my wife went in early this morning, they went over all the different options. The same plan for my family — nothing in our life has changed, everything is the same — is now $237.10 a week.”
But the jump from $127 a week to $237 a week isn’t even the worst of it, he said. Even if they opt for a plan that’s not as good as what they currently have, they’ll still be paying more than they were before.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Obamacare Quadruples Costs for Some, Rewards Others Who Quit Working
By Hans Bader.
Due to Obamacare, in North Carolina, insurance premiums will “triple for women, and quadruple for men” in the “individual-market” for health insurance. In Tennessee, Obamacare will triple men’s premiums, and double women’s, in the market for individual health insurance. Nationally, Obamacare will increase men’s premiums by 99 percent, and women’s by 62%.
Kathy Kristof of CBS MoneyWatch describes experiencing a 67 percent spike in her premiums, for a worse policy than she had before:
“The promise that you could keep your old policy, if you liked it, has proved illusory. My insurer, Kaiser Permanente, informed me in a glossy booklet that ‘At midnight on December 31, we will discontinue your current plan because it will not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.’
“My premium, the letter added, would go from $209 a month to $348, a 66.5 percent increase that will cost $1,668 annually . . . the things that mattered to me – that I would be able to limit my out-of-pocket costs if I had a catastrophic ailment – got worse under my new Obamacare policy. My policy, which has always paid 100 percent of the cost of annual check-ups, had a $5,000 annual deductible for sick visits and hospital stays. Once I paid that $5,000, the plan would pay 100 percent of any additional cost. That protected me from economic devastation in the event of a catastrophic illness, such as cancer.
“Kaiser’s Obamacare policy has a $4,500 deductible, but then covers only 40 percent of medical costs for office visits, hospital stays and drugs. Out-of-pocket expenses aren’t capped until the policyholder pays $6,350 annually.”
Read more from this story HERE.
